Snakebite
by Leinney Moorlyn
Summary: This is what happens when an author gets trapped in her own story and has to write her way out. 13 woeful chapters. Brass-ship story! Thomas Harris/Hannibal Tony Hillerman/Joe Leaphorn & Jim Chee, and Ian Fleming/007 X-overs.
1. Bitten

_Introductory Note: I wrote my first fan-fic as a teenager — at the time I had never heard of fan fiction as a genre. In the grips of typical teenage angst, I fantasized about running away from home: just getting on my bicycle and riding away. Instead of acting it out, I merged this fantasy with a _007_ novel I was reading, to write myself into the story, rather than just passively reading. Thus began a pleasant past time, and eventually I found other people who enjoyed writing fan-fics, too. Unfortunately, that first fan-fic has disappeared in the dust of time... [Disclaimer: any references to real people are fictional, and represent only the thoughts and opinions of the speakers rather than those of the author. Specific apologies to Jerry Bruckheimer, Tony Hillerman, Thomas Harris and Ian Fleming, without whose inspiration I would not have written this hack story...]_

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><p>Captain Brass picked his way carefully through the underbrush towards the crime scene he had been told was in this direction. While returning from another call south of Las Vegas on I-95, the homicide detective had heard the dispatcher reporting a body spotted by a tourist helicopter. It was located by one of the myriad dirt "roads" that led from the highway up into the foothills of the northern Mojave. After the local deputy sheriff responded from the other end of the county, Brass had volunteered to investigate the scene just a couple of miles up the road from where he was traveling. For all they knew, the "body" could still be alive and time could be of the essence. Brass called Grissom's cell to have him stop by on his own way back from their previous call — regardless of the condition of the "body"," it couldn't hurt to have a crime scene investigator around to gather evidence. A voice broke through the noises of his slow progress.<p>

"I wouldn't go over there if I were you."

Brass squinted up from the winding edge of the _bajada_ to the origin of the voice. Upon a steep alluvial hill carved into the sandstone by flash floods, a woman sat calmly beside a clump of desert grass, apparently studying an insect crawling across a grey-green blade. She was casually dressed in an oversized raglan-sleeve nightshirt over top of ridiculously short jeans offering "full flood view of bony ankles. Clad in tight-fitting Chinese canvas tennis shoes, her sockless feet seemed incongruously small for her long legs. As she sat cross-legged, Brass could see the cheap mottled soles were worn smooth. Windblown and loose, her long wavy brown hair stuck out in all directions as if searching in vain for a good brush. She reminded him of the housewives that answered early morning doorbells when he came to tell them bad news. None of his colleagues knew, but he secretly found himself more attracted to these ordinary real women than those starlet beauties who toughened their skin under the damaging neon rays of the Strip. His 'erotic fantasies' revolved around quiet suburban life untouched by the seedy corruption that he fought on a daily basis.

"Why not?" he asked.

"There's a dead body over there."

"I'm a homicide detective," he replied.

She now turned to look at him with wide blue eyes. "Ah, well then. That saves me the trouble of finding a phone." She gestured over the hill, saying brightly, "There's a dead body over there for you to look at." Her eyes clouded slightly as she spoke of the corpse.

"You wouldn't have anything to do with it, would you?" Brass asked dryly, finding the tone of the conversation bizarrely mundane, considering the morbid subject.

She grimaced. "As little as possible. I just found it a little while ago. Checked just to make sure it — she — was dead and not hurt."

"And who might you be?"

"_That_— I'm still trying to figure out." She held up a finger calmly, "First question: is she alive? — answer: stone cold, slightly desiccated so no use trying CPR." She held up another finger. "Second question: where is a phone to call 9-1-1? — No immediate answer, even after I climbed this little hill to look. But a third question: where am I? Followed shortly thereafter by: who am I? I was still trying to figure out precisely those answers when you happened along so precipitously. So now you know what I know. What next?"

"Next, you come down here and show me this body."

Her frank eyes struggled to deny his demand; she wanted to cooperate, but her calm demeanor masked a real horror of the situation. It was a coping mechanism he'd seen many times before — a widow trying to make tea for him with shaking hands just after he had informed her of the husband's demise... His heart ached to sympathize, but his feet shuffled impatiently at her hesitation.

Eyes widened in panic. "Look out behi—" she exclaimed.

Too late, Brass heard the rattle at his feet and realized he'd moved entirely in the wrong direction as the sharp sting of fangs sank through the flesh of his ankle.

"—nd you!"

Time crawled Hollywood-style as he processed the next few moments. As the woman leapt down the slope towards him, a rock whizzed past his sore ankle squarely hitting the fat triangle of the snake's head. Brass tottered a few steps away from the viper and sat down heavily on the slope behind him. The woman gently gripped under his arms to drag him a foot or so sideways next to a boulder against which he could lean comfortably. Although stumbling awkwardly to her knees, she did not hesitate before ripping his pants' leg open with her teeth and wrapping the ends around his calf, trying to tie them together. When the length proved inadequate, she tore off her own shirt to use for the job, tying the ripped ends into a snug fit, as tight as a blood-pressure cuff. Then she reached a wobbly hand towards his holster. Too late, he slowly raised his hands to prevent it, but instead of pulling his gun on him, she grabbed the cell phone clipped at his waist and started dialing 9-1-1. The pain in Brass' ankle hit him in a wave of agony, drawing out a groan.

He heard the faint voice of the dispatcher, "_9-1-1, what is your emergency?_"

"Rattlesnake bite," she responded breathlessly. "I sure hope you can trace this call. I have no idea where I am — in the desert somewhere."

He groaned again, shifting his weight, trying to remember through the haze of pain what mile-marker it was where he had left the highway. The phone slipped from her fingers into his lap as she grabbed his foot to move it gently down the slope. "Keep still. You must remain calm. You'll be OK," she said soothingly, although she teetered slightly off balance.

Just then, Gil Grissom rounded the corner of the alluvial ravine, following Brass' footprints to the scene. When the CSI night shift supervisor had parked by the unmarked sedan, the detective was nowhere to be seen, nor was he even answering the cell phone. Grissom resorted to his evidence tracking skills to find him. The sight of a disheveled and half-naked woman with feverish eyes bending over Brass' groaning form made him drop his kit and reach for his weapon.

"**Stop. Right. There.**" he commanded, using his best managerial voice, which brooked no opposition from the CSI's he supervised. Grissom's rapid heartbeat roared in his ears, threatening what was left of his hearing, so drastically reduced recently by a congenital problem.

She glanced at him, then back at Brass. As she reached towards the downed cop, Grissom might have shot her, but he was too far away to be sure of a clear line of fire. In the back of his mind, he realized he hesitated also because he never wanted to be the cause of any body lying in the morgue.


	2. Saved

Shoving that thought away with intense concern for his friend and colleague, he moved closer, only to have her hand him Brass' open cell phone.

"Here — tell the 9-1-1 dispatcher where we are," she said, oblivious to the gun pointing not even two feet from her head. Her eyes were focused on the empty air between them before her head swiveled away from him. "Tell them to send a helicopter if it's far away. Time is critical."

As he took the phone confusedly, she scooted away from Brass to grab the thing that had snagged her attention. Her labored breathing loud enough for even Grissom's ears, she stood up slowly, holding a twitching yard-long rattlesnake firmly by the back of the head with one hand, the rattle end by the other hand, examining it intently. Its skull was crushed, bits of sand embedded in the moist blood. Below the rattle, white and black bands encircled its tail. With the bright morning sunlight blinding his nocturnally adjusted eyes, Grissom could not discern the slight color difference between a Western Diamond Back or a Mojave Green — both highly venomous vipers. The crushed skull obliterated the characteristic difference in hood pattern, and being rusty on his herpetology he couldn't remember which rattle pattern had wider stripes. He now noticed the two ugly purple puncture wounds on his colleague's ankle and the beginnings of vertical poison streaks emanating from the wound area.

Instantly, Grissom grasped the entire situation and did exactly as she had bidden, adding his own instructions for the paramedics, after officially identifying himself as well as the patient and the suspected culprit. He knew that Mojave Green rattlesnake venom was both a neurotoxin and hemotoxin — affecting both the nervous system and blood. If caught in time, just two or three days in hospital should suffice. If not, it was quite deadly.

The woman gazed at the snake with regret and pity plainly in her eyes, gently coiling it on the ground a safe distance away from Brass. "They might want to see the species of snake, I suppose." She then sank heavily to the ground next to Brass, placing her hand over his with a soft squeeze. "How're you doing, there?"

His eyes had been squeezed shut with pain, but he opened them again at her touch. "I'll live," he grunted with all the words he could muster, but managing a weak smile. He never liked being vulnerable himself, so he tried to shrug it off with gruff humor.

The morning heat finally reminded Grissom to remove the jacket he'd worn through the night's chilly work; he passed it over to the woman so she could cover her exposed skin. She took the proffered clothing without comment, sliding the sleeves up to her elbows and snapping just the middle three buttons shut. No hint of embarrassment. Her breathing had calmed considerably.

"So, you say you don't know where you are? How did you get here?" asked Grissom.

"No, I don't know — and I think I'd have a better idea _where_ I am if I _did_ know _how_ I got here. From the looks of the vegetation, I'd guess somewhere near Four Corners," her mouth now twisted into a smile, "but you don't look like Joe Leaphorn, nor does he," her lips twisted peculiarly towards Brass, "look like Jim..." She continued holding the detective's hand gently, speaking softly as if to keep him calm. Only Grissom could see the occasional wild looks she darted out at the surrounding scrubland, as if trying to discern from the landscape what had happened to her.

"I _am_ Jim," Brass corrected, cracking a weak smile through the pain.

"Surely not Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "Then I'd know I was dreaming!"

"No, Captain Jim Brass, Clark County Homicide. Who's Joe Leaphorn?" he asked.

"Lieutenant Leaphorn — y'know, Tony Hillerman? The author?" she asked looking at both of them in turn, failing to find any spark of recognition. "Nevermind. You probably don't have much time to read what amateurs have to say about your profession..." she turned towards Grissom, abruptly dropping the subject "You wouldn't happen to have any first aid supplies there in that case, would you?" she asked, nodding over to the evidence kit Grissom had dropped.

Grissom walked back to pick it up. "Yeah, I think there are some things we could use until the ambulance gets here. Luckily, the emergency center back at Searchlight has anti-venom available, snakebites being more common out here." He turned to Brass, "they'll probably transfer you up to Desert Palms for a few days after that." He rummaged around in his kit for alcohol and gauze to clean the wound area.

"You should probably go back to the road soon to guide the EMT's," Brass suggested through gritted teeth as the alcohol burned his broken skin.

Grissom's eyes flickered worriedly over the woman not wanting to leave her alone with his gravely injured friend, so he suggested to her, "Perhaps you should go while I finish here?" He examined the shirt tied at calf-level, impressed by the firm tightness that slowed progress of the poison — tight enough to keep the poison in check, but not tourniquet tight that might kill the limb. He wished he had a blood pressure cuff to use for more precise control, but this temporary remedy would do well enough until the ambulance arrived.

"Sure," she assented easily, but then hesitated. "Um, where's the road?"

"You don't know?"

She shook her head, no. "I came from over there, where the dead body — woman — is." She pointed through the steep hill that bore the heel marks of her hurried slide down to help Brass.

"Were you there when she died?" Grissom asked cautiously, not wanting to accuse her of murder until he'd had a chance to collect and examine the evidence.

"I doubt it." To Grissom's raised eyebrow, she elaborated, "I think I'd be a lot thirstier than I am if I'd been around."

Gauging by the woman's cracked lips and dry skin, Grissom wondered how long the body had been exposed to the elements.

Brass nodded as if confirming her account, but added meaningfully, "Before the snake bit me, she described the body as _slightly desiccated_." From his long professional relationship with Brass, Grissom understood that the detective was pointing out the significant choice of words. Average citizens would say 'dried out' instead of 'desiccated.'

"And I was walking for a while before I saw it — her," the woman continued.

"Walking? From where?" Grissom prompted, momentarily forgetting the impending ambulance arrival. He noted the woman's internal conflict between talking neutrally about "it" or placing "her" in a human context. Green recruits to the gritty side of law enforcement, filled with objective book theory but new to the actual experience of messy crime scenes, often displayed this same conflict. The use of the neutral term first, though, increased the likelihood that the body was long dead when she found it, thereby backing up her story.

"Not sure. It was all automatic-pilot — like I wasn't really aware what was going on — until I saw her. She was lying there, and I checked to see if she was alright and..." she paused with the expression of relived horror/disbelief so commonly seen on witnesses' faces. "I was trying to figure out what to do next, having climbed that hill," she pointed to where Brass had found her, "and seen nowhere to go. And then Jim here walked by... So, where's the road?"

Remembering that he had turned quite a few corners, picking his way through the prickly brush (and just now wondering how Grissom figured out where he'd gone), Brass suggested to the scientist, "Why don't you go back and show them the way. She'll keep me company. I've got bottled water and an extra t-shirt in the trunk of my car. That coat's gotta be too hot, and you'll be wanting it back for work tonight." He dragged his keys out of his pocket to hand over to Grissom. They'd need to drive his car back for him, too.

After Grissom left, Brass eyed his rescuer through half-closed lids. Through searing agony, he toughed it out, refusing to allow the groan in his throat to voice itself. Involuntarily, he gripped her fingers that curled over his hand into his palm, when a spasm of pain threatened his composure. For a moment his mind flashed back to a time before his marriage went sour, when his ex-wife had held his hand like that briefly at the breakfast table. He welcomed that feeling of old comfort.

"It'll be all right. You just need to lie still and the ambulance will be here. I can hear the sirens getting closer," she murmured soothingly. "Say, what do you do to calm down after a hard day at work?"

"J&B doubles," he admitted, realizing she was trying to keep him occupied and awake, and knowing from his emergency training that it would be better for him to allow the distraction. Besides, he liked the lopsided smile on her face.

"On the rocks?"

"No, straight."

"Here," she said, reaching over holding an imaginary tumbler. "Drink this. It should keep your heart rate down and help you stay still." He took the invisible drink and tipped it back, feeling the numbing burn of his favorite drink, even if it wasn't real. She was right — it _did_ calm him down. Made it easier to cope.


	3. Transported

Grissom's timing was just right, and he flagged down the ambulance and an accompanying squad car from the local sheriff's station. As the ambulance parked by the Tahoe and the medical team unloaded the gurney and other equipment, he grabbed a few bottles of water and the extra clothing from Jim's sedan. Then he led them at a brisk hike to their patient. The woman was still sitting next to Brass holding his hand, and both of them wore tired smiles on their faces, waiting patiently. She moved over to relinquish care of the detective to the emergency team, and Grissom handed the shirt and a bottle of water over to her. As he turned back to get an evidence bag out of his kit, he heard the sharp intake of breath from the deputy as the young man turned beet red. The woman had removed Grissom's jacket without bothering to turn away, and blithely put the t-shirt on before opening the bottled water. She didn't appear to notice the deputy's discomfort, gazing intently instead at the injured man being treated. Grissom busied himself with depositing the snake (now no longer twitching) into the evidence bag for the emergency team to take back to the doctors.

Satisfied that the paramedics were treating his colleague, Grissom took his jacket with the woman's thanks and had her lead the way to the body. It was sprawled in the next ravine exactly in a beeline from where the woman had pointed through the hill, as near as he could tell. Child-sized smooth-soled shoeprints led from the hills toward the body and then up the steep hill. It surprised him that a woman who seemed about the same height as his tall investigator, Sara Sidle, should have such tiny feet, but then he remembered a recent amnesia case with similar statistically abnormal foot/height ratio. He grimaced slightly in recollection — the woman from that earlier case currently troubled his life, distracting his thoughts even at work. Pulling out his cell, he reported the location of the body to the day shift supervisor to take over the scene, instructing the local deputy sheriff to stay until the new CSI team arrived to process. He also talked with Brass' department to inform them of his injury.

He and the woman followed the gurney back to the makeshift parking lot. As Grissom gazed at the pattern of small shoeprints unfolding in front of him, noticing that she favored her slightly splayed right foot, the woman's steps faltered. Grissom looked up as her half-turned face lost color, the eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed; he dropped his evidence kit a second time, just managing to keep her head from hitting the rocky ground. Although there was no extra gurney available, the ambulance had a bench that converted into an emergency 'bed,' with safety straps. The professionals quickly lifted her limp body inside and immediately began checking her vitals, radioing in details on the extra patient. The driver swiftly closed the rear doors, hopped into the front and took off down the dusty road. Having discharged the scene to the next shift, Grissom automatically retrieved her nearly full bottle of water that had rolled into the ditch, packed away his gear and followed in his Tahoe.


	4. Hospitalized

Brass returned to work that evening. The quick response of the woman and the paramedics with the anti-serum, coupled with the good fortune that defensive snakebites often carry less than a quarter of the venom that is injected into prey, drastically reduced the severity of the injury. The doctor had discharged him from the hospital around mid afternoon and advised him to take it easy for a week or two, and he decided that meant he could confine himself to desk duty. Ironically, it was the woman who had acted so quickly to save his life who would be in the hospital a few days. Grissom was still at the hospital checking on their mystery woman and gave the detective a lift back to his car.

"She fainted from dehydration, it seems," he told Brass as he pulled out onto the highway.

"Yeah, I gathered that from what I could understand the paramedics saying," the captain concurred. "They gave her an IV drip in the ambulance — saline solution. They also said her blood sugar was low — probably hadn't eaten recently."

"She had a concussion, too. Cracked the back of her skull, probably affecting her memory — should return in time. I wonder how she got there — out in the middle of nowhere?" Grissom mused.

"After they put the IV drip into her, she woke up briefly in the ambulance. Told me she was a writer, which is why she thought she was in Four Corners. Didn't make much sense, but she was very groggy. She told me her name was Lenny Moreland, or something like that. Doesn't sound like a woman's name — Lenny."

"If she's a writer, maybe it's a _nom de plume_. Lots of women take on male pseudonyms, to help boost sales of their books to male audiences. The chauvinistic crowd won't buy books written by women, regardless of the contents." Grissom shrugged.

"I'll check it out this evening," Brass replied, eager to get back to work. "Also, what were the other names she mentioned? Jim...Chee (as in _Kim Chee_)," he wrinkled his nose at the thought of the stinky pickled Korean food one of his friends adored, "and Joe...?"

"Leap Horn, I think."

"Yeah, Sergeant Jim Chee and Lieutenant Joe Leap Horn of the Navajo Police. Four Corners, where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet. There's an Indian reservation up there — Navajo, I think. Other side of the Grand Canyon." Grissom could tell that Brass was hot on the scent of a case. Every time his team came up with evidence for the detectives to pursue, Brass got that same gleam in his eye.

Dayshift was finishing packing up the sparse evidence into their own vehicles when Grissom pulled alongside Brass' sedan. They exchanged professional information about the scene and Brass volunteered to keep tabs on the witness, who happened to have saved his life. Before leaving, Grissom gave Brass the fingerprint card he'd taken on the witness at the hospital, knowing that the detective would get to it immediately. Grissom had neglected to fill out the information completely, but Brass would finish it for his friend.


	5. Revealed

After taking a few hours' nap in the afternoon, Brass stopped by the hospital on his way to work. "Lenny" had woken up from the sedated sleep but greeted him brightly.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" she asked.

"Business. I've got questions, if you're up to it."

"Surely it's not your jurisdiction," she smiled. "I'm guilty of herpeticide, not homicide. Would that be the ASPCA? Say, perhaps there's some dispensation for protecting you — it was poised to strike a second time..."

"I'll put in a good word for you. _Serpent suspect was killed in the commission of a felony – attempted murder of a law enforcement officer_." He winked at her to establish rapport before continuing with his business. "No, I'm here with regards to you being a homicide witness."

"OK. But I don't know how I can help you," she replied dubiously.

"How about starting with spelling your full name, Lenny," he said gently.

"Sure. L-e-i-n-n-e-y. M-o-o-r-l-y-n."

"Leinney? That's unusual," he commented.

"Oh, sorry. You asked my full name. It's actually Madeleine. M-a-d-e-l-e-i-n-e. But I've been Leinney since...before I could write my own name..." she drifted away, reminiscing.

"Thanks. So tell me about this morning."

"I just found her body — right before you got there."

"How long before?"

"I dunno." Her forehead wrinkled. "Minutes? The sun wasn't yet up over the mountain, but it was pretty light out. The sun didn't shine on you until after he arrived."

"Grissom?"

A jolt of recognition crossed her face. "_Who?_"

"Dr. Grissom. He's the crime scene investigator who followed me there."

Her eyes narrowed. "I've heard that name before..." she muttered.

"Gil Grissom?"

"Yeah. But where?" She rubbed her forehead vigorously.

"Probably in some research journal. He's written for a lot of scientific journals."

"Perhaps." She shook her head. "I can't seem to remember much. I have such a headache."

"Maybe you should rest, then. I'll return again tomorrow." Brass felt more tender than usual towards this woman; he wasn't inclined to badger her with questions as he would normally. She had saved his life, though. Perhaps that was why his heart melted with concern. He decided to return to the office and look up the rest of the information on this woman via the computers.

When he returned to the hospital the next day, Brass had tracked down her identity and contacted the police in her hometown in Montana. They dispatched a detective team to her address to investigate her disappearance and search for clues to any foul play, promising to keep the Las Vegas detective apprised of any developments.

As he entered her room, Brass experienced a brief panic moment at seeing the bed unoccupied. Having recently lost another amnesiac witness to an overzealous cost-conscious hospital administrator, the detective was temporarily over-sensitive. Then he realized her sheets were rumpled and the bathroom was occupied, light spilling under the door.

When she opened the door, her eyes were cloudy as her fingertips wandered subconsciously over one cheek.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"This is going to sound weird," she began, but he nodded encouragingly. "I look in the mirror...and it's_ not my face_. But...when I try to describe what I _think_ I should be seeing — brunette, longish hair, blue eyes, oval face — it's the same description as the mirror, just not the same exact face... like... like one of those sketches you see on the evening news, of unknown crime suspects. It's similar, but not _exactly,_ the same as the real person."

"I'll bet that's perfectly normal for someone with amnesia," he said, trying to cheer her up. He really didn't know whether it was true, but filed the idea in the back of his mind to check later. "I wouldn't worry too much."

"The doctors say I should be able to leave tomorrow, but that it could be a little while before my memory clears up," she said. "I might not even remember everything."

"That's OK," he replied. "The coroner found the cause of death. It seems the same species of snake that bit me also bit the deceased woman. Several weeks ago, as near as can be determined. So you're off the hook." He smiled. "I'll return again tomorrow and see how you're doing."

She smiled shyly. "I'd like that."

Not content to wait for the Bozeman detectives to finish their investigation, Brass followed up on some of the preliminary information they had given him. He contacted her employer, BMF Inc., in Texas.

The receptionist greeted him with a friendly southern accent, but was stumped when he asked for Ms. Moorlyn's immediate supervisor. With helpful efficiency, she patched him through to a Mr. Bateman, Vice President of Human Resources, "who would surely have all employee records at his fingertips."

Mr. Bateman answered the phone with the same pleasant drawl as the receptionist, exchanging formal names without hurry before getting down to business.

"Oh, yes. Madeleine has been with our company since its inception nearly twenty-five years ago. But I'm not surprised Linda doesn't know her — Linda's only been here for a year or so and Leinney — Madeleine — is one of our free-lancers. She works out of her home in Montana and hardly ever visits the main office here."

"Who is her supervisor?"

"Technically? No one. She works special projects for whichever department needs her services."

"What would those be?"

"Writing, researching, editing — that sort of thing. Anything we need. She writes articles we release to magazines. She edits training manuals..."

"I see. Do you know who she's been working with most recently?"

"Let me look it up for you... Yes, that would be Fell, Dr. T.H. Fell. Now that's strange..."

Brass filled the ensuing pause, "What's strange?"

"Well, Dr. Fell was only on our employee roster for two weeks back a few months ago. Yet Leinney's still listed as working with him and therefore not available." He chuckled, "she's had a long vacation. I hope she doesn't think we've forgotten about her..."

"More like the other way 'round," Brass commented.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't tell you, but the reason for my inquiry is that we're investigating her disappearance a few months ago."

"Oh, no!" Bateman exclaimed with sudden concern. "She's not...?"

"Dead? Thankfully no. We found her wandering alone in the desert southeast of Vegas. We're trying to piece together how she wound up here so far away from Montana."

"Is she OK? Is there anything we can do for her? I can send someone — no, I should come myself — what hospital is she in?"

Brass cut off the tumult of questions, "She's fine; she'll be out of the hospital this afternoon. She just doesn't remember what happened."

"D'ya think her disappearance has something to do with Dr. Fell's project?" Bateman inquired, now calmed by Brass' assurances about Ms. Moorlyn's state of health.

"It's a possibility, given the time frame."

"I'll have one of the assistants pull all the relevant paperwork and fax it over to you. And feel free to call me anytime with any other questions."

Brass gave him the fax number. But a detail still bugged him. "Mr. Bateman, it's all very commendable that you should be so concerned about Ms. Moorlyn, but isn't it a bit unusual for you to offer to fly out here personally when she's just a free-lancer?"

Bateman chuckled, "If you knew the corporate culture of this company, you might not ask that. But you're right, Leinney is more than just a free lancer. She was the only living relative left after Mr. Bismaquer died. Bless Mr. Bismaquer, our benefactor — you know, the BMF stands for the Bismaquer Memorial Foundation. His will converted all of his business holdings under the Foundation, folding all former profits back into the system so that his employees could have stable employment without interference from greedy investors. But Ms. Moorlyn wasn't a former employee. I think she was niece if I recall correctly. But instead of inheriting a trust fund, she's on a permanent retainer and has a job — any job she wants — for as long as she wants it. Some of the original employees' children whom Bismaquer sort of adopted have a similar arrangement, too. Mr. Bismaquer wanted to leave a different sort of company as his legacy; he envisioned a family company, where all the employees treat each other like family, and everyone pulls his own weight."


	6. Released

Brass returned to see Leinney just as the hospital was discharging her. The insurance company had dictated that she could follow up later with her personal doctor, but further hospitalization was not medically necessary and therefore would not be covered. However, she seemed eager to go, citing bad food and poor rest. Brass could fully sympathize, not liking hospitals much himself. They sat on the bed in her room while waiting for the wheelchair to take her to the front entrance; silly hospital rules required such an exit, as Brass had discovered to his chagrin a few days before.

A nurse had kindly washed her clothes for her — including Brass' extra shirt. Her wearing it reminded him of the long-forgotten comfort and domestic sexiness of seeing his (now ex-) wife borrowing his clothes. He shook the cobweb memory loose from his head with a jolt, realizing that the laundry would have erased all evidence that may have told them where she had been. He wondered whether Grissom had bothered with the shirt she'd tied around his leg. _Sheesh, that isn't like him,_ he thought. _Must've really rattled him when he saw I was hurt — I didn't realize he cared so much..._ He knew he'd cover this lapse for his colleague, burying it in the details of the paperwork. He owed that much to their long friendship. Besides, the case belonged to dayshift. Ecklie's team was responsible for collecting that evidence.

Brass smirked. He didn't like Ecklie any more than Grissom did, but he was politically savvy enough to keep such feelings behind the scenes. He hadn't filled out the fingerprint card yet; perhaps leaving it in the files with the investigator's name blank would be sufficient to keep Ecklie guessing which one of his dayshift team screwed up, since none of them went to the hospital. Without a target, Ecklie merely fumed and no harm would fall on anyone. They would just have to rely on other evidence that still existed to help the investigation. Happened all the time when suspects got rid of evidence before they could collect it.

"OK," he said as he dumped the contents of an envelope onto the sheet. "Here's all your ID; the police in Bozeman were kind enough to FedEx your wallet down here; you'll need it to board a plane home. We can't determine exactly when you disappeared, as you live alone and no one noticed until we started looking from this end. Your employer says you were working on a project with Dr. Fell a few months ago. And based on the pile of mail that was found on the floor just inside your front door, as well as your bank activity it seems that's when you disappeared. No sign of forced entry or foul play. So what happened?"

"I don't know. I don't even know how I got here — any plane reservations?" she asked hopefully.

"Nothing on your bank records. Regular spending habits just plain stopped a few months ago. No extra money taken out for a trip or anything. The two vehicles registered to you — the car and your motorcycle — are still parked in your garage. A bike pump but no bicycle was found — do you have a bicycle?"

"I-I dunno, probably..." she said distractedly, as she examined the contents of her wallet. "When did I move to Bozeman?" she muttered.

"What?" Brass didn't quite hear what she'd said about Bozeman.

She shook her head.

The wheelchair arrived, breaking their conversation.

Brass retrieved his car and met her wheelchair at the front entrance to the hospital. As she got in, she asked if they had time to stop at a store to pick up some clothing. "I really need a bra," she said shyly. "And while I'm at it, I should pick up a shirt so you can have yours back, and perhaps a few changes of clothing as well."

He drove to the nearest department store, figuring there should be all manner of clothing from which she could choose. First, she went to the women's department, where Brass stood around the fringes of the unfamiliar territory, uncomfortable but patient, while the sales clerk helped her figure out which was the right sized brassiere. Mission accomplished, Leinney then surprised him by striding over to the men's section and picking out some jeans off the wall shelves, holding them up to herself to gauge length and waistband before selecting a few to carry back to the women's changing booths.

Satisfied with one of the sizes, she returned to pick up two more pairs of men's jeans and several plain t-shirts, also from the men's section.

"Why the men's clothing?" Brass inquired, eyebrow raised at the long 34-inch inseam. While he had at least an inch on the tall woman, his own inseam was only 30 inches.

"They're cheaper _and_ long enough. I tried on a few pairs of the women's pants; the regulars were way to short and the talls came up to my ribs. 'Short waist,' the sales clerk said and suggested I try the men's clothing if I didn't mind the style. She was right." Leinney rounded off her purchases with a bag each of cotton socks and underwear, and a travel bag in which to carry them.

Brass took her to a laundry mat around the corner. While the clothes were drying, he received a cell call telling him of a guest waiting for them at the station.


	7. Recognized

"I take it you don't recognize me," the weathered old Native American said. His peppered grey hair was thick and bristle-short.

"Should I?" she asked, examining his face for any such recognition.

"Joe Leaphorn, retired from the Navajo Tribal Police," he replied.

She closed one eye, wrinkling her face in suspicion. "What...? But...?" she sputtered. "Oh. Very funny, Jim," she squinted at him.

"Your prints weren't on file in the national database because you were a juvenile at the time they were taken — when you ran away from home," Brass started to explain.

She interrupted, "Ran away? What are you talking about?"

Ignoring her questions as rhetorical memory lapses, he continued. "But when I enquired with the Navajo Tribal Police, especially with Sergeant Chee and his retired colleague here, they remembered you. And the prints they took back when you ran away from home were still on file. Positive match: Madeleine Moorlyn."

Joe Leaphorn took his turn. "After your parents died in the train crash, Children's Services decided to allow your college student nanny keep you at home one last night before you entered foster care, but you decided to ride off on your bicycle, from Montana down through Salt Lake City and finally onto Route 666 until you reached Four Corners. Where I found you sleeping on the side of the road near a murder scene. That was 24 years ago — so I'm curious: where did you go after you escaped custody? It's bothered me since then, hoping you were OK."

"What...? How did you...? No one read that story of mine," she protested, confusion written plainly across her face. "I wrote that twenty-four years ago. My parents never even saw it."

"Your parents died in a train crash twenty-four years ago. What story are you talking about?"

"That's impossible. I threw it out. _Ohmygod..._" she whispered, wide-eyed. "_That_ must be why my memory is so fuzzy, but _how..._?" She squinted painfully, but shook her head. "No way. I don't believe..."

"What?" prompted Brass. Normally he would be annoyed to with a witness who wasn't making any sense. Yet his aching leg reminded him how this woman had saved his life and been kind to him — the least he could do is be kind in return. And there was something else, too, that he hadn't felt in a long time. He suspected himself of falling in love with her. No use telling himself it was ridiculous. He had to admit it — at least, internally. Cupid's stupid arrows, and he was a victim. He'd have to be careful not to let it get to his head. He was long used to ignoring his heart.

"I don't know," she shook her head again in disbelief. "I can't understand."

Leaphorn stared at this woman. Chee's uncle might have said her spirit was troubled by a _chindi_, the lingering ghost that could threaten those who were present when someone died. Leaphorn did not believe in such superstition himself, but he knew from experience that such beliefs still affected people nonetheless.

Grissom entered the lobby, waiting for his staff who were trickling in behind him; Brass had asked them to meet him there a few hours before shift started. Grissom had grilled him on the reason behind such an unusual invitation, but he just shrugged and said the near-brush with death inspired him to treat his friends and colleagues to dinner as a small gesture of gratitude for their long friendship. No biggie, really.

"Gil!" Brass called. "Dr. Gil Grissom," he said to the ex-officer and then turned to his colleague. "This is Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, retired from the Navajo Tribal Police. He drove here from Window Rock when he heard about our inquiry. You've already met Leinney Moorlyn, of course, whose quick action saved me some time in the hospital..."

She was visibly embarrassed by the dour captain's uncharacteristic gushing gratitude.

"Nothing you wouldn't have done yourself," she muttered.

"I couldn't have hit that snake with a rock..." he said.

"No, you'd have used a gun instead," she countered. "Probably more accurate, too."

Brass snorted. "Didn't need to be any more accurate than you were — how'd a writer get so good at throwing rocks?" he mused.

Just then, Greg Sanders, the youthful DNA lab specialist, entered the lobby holding a clipboard with a fairly new legal pad attached to it.

"Actually, I think I can answer that, embarrassing as it might be."

Her wry smile made piqued Brass' curiosity.

She turned to Greg. "You got a scrap of paper I could have?"

Greg had been concentrating so hard on catching Grissom's attention off to the side that he was momentarily uncertain as to how to respond. With a prompting nod from Brass, he tore a clean sheet from the back of the pad. Leinney took it with a smile of thanks, crumpled it up, presented it to Brass as if for a magic trick, and without taking her eyes off his face, she tossed the tight ball sideways about fifteen feet. It bounced neatly off the wall and into the mouth of a trash receptacle. "I'm not a very good writer," she explained with a shrug. "Maybe should've played ball instead..." Her lips twisted in a wry smile.

"Perhaps I should be glad of that," replied Brass, matching her expression.

Brass then introduced Leaphorn and Leinney to the rest of Grissom's team assembled there: Greg, Sara Sidle, Warrick Brown, Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes. While Leinney shook hands, politely repeating each name in full, her face gradually paled and her hand trembled.

"Are you all right?" asked Catherine, the mother hen of the CSI brood.

"Mmm," she mumbled. Under her breath, she chanted, "Las Vegas. We're in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is in Clark County. Clark County Homicide."

Brass guided her to a seat in the lobby, confirming her simple orientation statements, "Yes, and this is the lobby of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, serving Clark County. Are you OK?" Worriedly, he looked up at the team and suggested, "We should call an ambulance."

"No," said Leinney, recovering. "I'll be fine. It's just the headache. I guess I need to eat something. Hospital food isn't very appetizing."

"Yeah, shall we catch some dinner across the street?" invited Brass. The upscale diner was mostly patronized by law enforcement personnel, so conveniently was it placed. As they crossed the street, several pairs of concerned eyes kept watch over the Montana native. Brass kept a gentle but firm hold on her elbow.

Leinney remained quiet until halfway through the meal, listening politely to the general conversation, most of which concerned Leaphorn's unusual experiences enforcing law on tribal lands, where white man's laws had different connotations in tribal philosophies. After a discussion cropped up about reconciling native spiritual beliefs with criminal investigations, Leinney suddenly asked, "What do you think about the scientific investigation of psychic phenomena?"

"Waste of time," opined Grissom.

"I agree; psychics are just card sharks in a different setting." Warrick Brown dismissed.

"Oh, I don't know," drawled Nick Stokes. "I've read a few studies that show statistical anomalies between pure chance and certain psychic talents."

Brass added "What about that psychic who _had details_ on one of our cases a few years ago? We sure arrested the perpetrator based on his help..." he reminded.

"Could have done it without him," Sara Sidle said. "And you _can't_ use psychic evidence in a courtroom. You still need hardcore scientific proof to put them away."

"What if..." Leinney asked cautiously, "psychic phenomena could be explained as if life was just a piece of literature, or a collection of literature, and psychics were just people who can read different pages than the ones in which their own lives were contained?"

"Interesting metaphor," Catherine said to fill the silence.

Noticing the stares broken by Catherine's comment, Leinney quickly explained, "Er, I was just considering the metaphor for a new story I'm working on."

Leaphorn regarded her thoughtfully.

Brass put the bill on his tab. While the CSI's waited to thank him before wandering back across the street to start their shift, Warrick caught Leinney staring at him intensely. Almost manically.

"What?" he challenged, preferring to confront people who stared at his bi-cultural looks. He was mulatto, with soft latté-colored skin, blue-green eyes and blondish afro. In high school he was teased, but nowadays women were drawn to his exotic coloring.

"You don't look like Gary Dourdan, but as she said, you _do_ have this Lenny Kravitz thing going on."

Warrick meant to ask who Gary was, but was startled by the almost direct quote from Ellie Brass when he'd had the misfortune to interview her on a drug-trafficking/murder case. Thinking back on that case, he recalled his discomfort at having to investigate the homicide detective's daughter. Both father and daughter shared a streak of intense personality, even if they _weren't_ biologically related (something only he and Brass knew and he feared the older man's wrath if it ever came to light — he'd even kept it a secret from Grissom, who knew _everything..._). Shaking his head, Warrick retreated into his taciturn self, trailing after Sara, Nick and Catherine who were trading customary jibes.

Brass, Leaphorn and Leinney returned back to the station more slowly, stopping in the courtyard outside the lobby.

Leaphorn repeated his earlier question, "So, I'm still curious: what happened to you twenty-four years ago?"

She looked down, contemplating the tips of her shoes before replying. "I can't honestly say. I'm not sure of anything right now."

"She's still recovering from amnesia," Brass reiterated to Leaphorn.

"My driver's license says my middle name is Nena. The name Nena Blo... No, Bismaquer..."

"Bismaquer?" Brass repeated. "The Bozeman police listed your employer as Bismaquer Memorial Foundation. Same name?"

She squinted in thought. "Nena Bismaquer seems familiar — connected. I _think_ she lived in Texas. Aunt Nena? A few snippets of newspaper my mother collected — was I named for her? It's all very fuzzy like it happened to someone else, like a story I was writing long ago..." Troubled eyes avoided Brass.

"Bismaquer, you say?" asked Leaphorn. "Yes, the enormous Bismaquer estate in Texas. Near Amarillo, as I recall."

The woman's eyes widened with surprise at this confirmation.

"There was a big scandal there," he continued, "several weeks after you left Four Corners. It was in the papers. Something about her killing her husband in self-defense and then disappearing. The FBI was involved."

"CIA. It was international. Felix Leiter," she said, nodding. "Nena," she shook her head. "She wasn't nice. Pure malice, not self-defense. Irony got her though, via her pet snake." Leinney scrunched her face as if she was struggling not lose her dinner.

"Is that how you knew how to handle the rattlesnake?" Brass prompted.

She shook her head. "Python. She trained it to...prey on... people. Only it didn't recognize its mistress..." Leaphorn could almost hear the bones crunching as Leinney flinched from the memory; she'd obviously witnessed her aunt being eaten by the constrictor.

"Bismaquer was nice. He knew, I think. Made sure everyone was taken care of before... Felix, the CIA guy, he helped, too. And the British guy, James... He stopped and offered a lift into town when the bike tire blew. Took the train with him to the Bismaquer estate." Leinney squinted and rubbed her forehead.

_Clearly difficult memories,_ Brass thought. _She's not making any real sentences, and leaving herself out of the descriptions. Distancing mechanism._ "That's OK," he said.

"No, somehow I don't think it is." She mumbled, "_It's all related — but how?_"

"Let us help you."

She shook her head sadly. "Don't think you can. Not hardly. Not if my half-memory is accurate."

"Try me. I know a lot of people who can help, especially finding related details."

"Do you know who Tony Hillerman or Jerry Bruckheimer are?" Her face took on the pinched look of a dog expecting to be kicked.

"Tony Hillerman?" Leaphorn perked up his head. "Now how would you know my neighbor? He moved into the area several years after you were there."

"The writer?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

Leaphorn thought he detected suspicion that he wasn't telling her the truth. _Odd_. "He's retired. He worked as a crime reporter in Oklahoma in the 50's and 60's. In the 70's and early 80's he taught journalism at the University of New Mexico before getting interested in preserving Navajo stories and culture. How would you know him?"

"I don't. I just read a...something that he wrote in which your name was mentioned." She shook her head. "No, perhaps he cannot help."

"Bruckheimer...Bruckheimer. Sounds familiar," said Brass. He snapped his fingers. "That Hollywood has-been who was bugging our department for case files a few years back, trying to resurrect his career. Said he wanted to do some crime show glamorizing the world of forensic science. That's _all_ we need — more star-struck recruits who bail out at the first sign of tedious work and disgusting crime scenes. No thanks! The PR department sent him packing in a hurry."

Leinney stared at him peculiarly.

"What?" Brass answered her stare.

"Not who I thought he was," she said, now studying the darkening skyline. "I should find a place to stay. Got any recommendations off the Strip?"

"Yeah," said Brass. "I know some quiet but clean places. Give me a few minutes and I'll give you a ride." He left them in the courtyard as he went inside to talk with the receptionist about messages and where he could be reached.

Leaphorn leaned over to talk to Leinney. "So, how do you know who Jim Chee is?"

"What?" she replied. After a pause her eyes widened. "Oh..."

"You never met him at Window Rock."

"But Jim said — Captain Brass said — that he recognized me. I guess I filled in the blanks and just assumed..."

With Navajo patience, Leaphorn let the comment fade into a long silence before forming his reply. "And Captain Brass specifically asked for Jim Chee _before_ mentioning my name. Said you used his name."

For a moment it seemed as if she might deny it, but instead she turned the questions on him. "Then how is it he recognized _me?_"

Leaphorn had no problem revealing, "He remembered what I'd said about you. We had another 15 year old disappear from custody a few years later."

"_Delmar,_" she whispered, before thinking better of it.

"Now why would you know his name?" Leaphorn kept his face impassive, but he was startled.

She regarded him another long moment, clearly struggling whether to remain silent or tell him the truth. "You wouldn't believe it."

"Try me. I've seen quite a lot of things in my career." And his long experience told him that her expression was exactly that of someone wanting desperately to confide an awful secret. It was likely his patience would be rewarded.

Finally she said, "I don't even believe it and it's my own experience. Except that you convinced me by telling me something you couldn't possibly know otherwise. But," and she paused, eyes concerned, "if I am to convince you in return, I don't know of any way to do so without hurting you. I don't want to do that."

"How would you hurt me?" he asked, thinking that a little pain could be endured, quickly forgotten. Especially as he had already endured the greatest pain of his life: losing his beloved wife.

"What I would say..." Shaking her head, she said, "No. I don't have the wisdom to know what to do."

"Hurtful words? Isn't there a saying: _sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me?_" he smiled gently, encouraging her to share the troubling thoughts. Perhaps it might restore her spirit to _hozro_ — harmony, as his Dinee culture taught.

With pain in her eyes she said, "She bought those pajamas for you for your birthday two weeks after your marriage. In deference to her modesty you wore them until she passed on to that last great adventure..." she drifted off, eyes pleading desperately.

"_Emma,_" he confirmed hoarsely.

"And the sound of your footsteps in the empty kitchen reminds you of the guilt you endure for having left the four-day mourning ceremony of her clan — because you couldn't bear to think of her as a _chindi_, a malevolent ghost..." she faltered as he turned away from her, his face darkened with a mix of emotions. And then, even more softly she continued, "she gifted you with new ones as the old ones became threadbare. You stopped wearing them after she passed, but have kept the last pair in the back of your drawer, neatly folded. Until you brought them out to pack for the trip to China, to wear in the hotel room shared with Louisa. But then you were suspended because Chee was overheard using your tape recorder. And your trip was cancelled. You refolded them and put them back in the drawer." She stopped.

Leaphorn finally turned around. "The story metaphor you're working on — life as literature with psychics reading different pages. And you see not only your own life but other peoples' lives as literature. Makes sense for a writer, I suppose."

She nodded sideways, shrugging. Leaphorn could tell she deeply regretted saying anything, but he knew he was not capable of helping her with this type of problem. "A spirit gift is powerful," he said. "It can be used to harm as well as help. I think you're right. You may need to find an elder to help you with that wisdom you seek." Leaphorn excused himself to find his truck. He did not look back.

Jim returned. "Where's Leaphorn?" He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or annoyed. He wanted to be alone with this woman, but the old Navajo had been positively rude to leave her there.

"He went home," she said sadly.

"Just like that?"

"Yeah."

Brass dropped the subject in favor of a happier one. While he was checking his messages, it occurred to him he ought to offer her the guest room in his apartment — save some money. It was the least he could do for someone who saved his life. She accepted and his heart leapt with unaccustomed delight.


	8. Trapped

"Do you like it?" the cultured voice asked.

She opened her eyes to look at the speaker. The man was average height, grey-white hair of about fifty or so years in age, mild face with piercing blue eyes whose pupils easily reflected red light. "Have we been introduced?" she asked politely, continuing to sit placidly on the couch in Jim Brass' living room where she'd been dozing. Disbelief had worn her down to a disassociated curiosity.

"Madeleine, I am Dr. Lecter," he replied with formal tones.

"Dr. _Hannibal_ Lecter?" she asked without any hint of surprise.

"You have heard of me, then?" He seemed to be quite pleased to be recognized.

"I've _read_ about you," she replied without any kind of emotion.

"In old newspapers, perhaps?"

"No. Books." She was studying him with guarded eyes.

"An unauthorized biography? I shall have to inform the author how impolite it was not to tell me about it." Dr. Lecter's tone remained mild, yet his pupils flashed red with deep-seated venom as he said it.

"No. _Fiction,_" she breathed, gazing into his eyes without flinching. "Do I like — what?"

"The identity I created for you," he replied smoothly.

"You did this?" she frowned.

"Of course."

"How?"

"Now _that_, my dear _Madeleine_," his silken voice glided over her name, "would be telling. I make it a practice not to give away my secrets. One would not want other — less sophisticated — people doing what I have done. Too chaotic."

"Why?"

"Better question. I wanted to see if it could work. And it did. So do you like it?"

"Maybe."

"Tut. Tut. Lying does not become you, Madeleine. Do not spoil our honest relationship with a lie. I might be forced into teaching you a lesson..." his eyes flashed again before retreating back to mild attentiveness. "Then again, you said _maybe_, which is more evasive than actual lying. But _maybe_ is still a lie if you _know_ the answer. I shall ask you again. And this time, please do not lie: do you like it?"

"_No,_" she breathed. Throughout the conversation, her eyes never left him, even as he turned his back on her, walking around to examine minute details of Brass' living room.

"And why not, Madeleine? I used your own stories to create this delicious fiction for you."

"_That's_ why. My stories are _fiction_, not real. They're not supposed to _happen_."

"Really? What about the characters you create, dear Madeleine? For them, all your invented fictions are real. They have to endure the little tortures you put in their lives, do they not? And how they respond to those events, well, that is up to them, now is it not? They have to rely on the character development you provided for them as to whether they can endure and survive or be killed off like..." He now focused his penetrating gaze on her transfixed eyes. "Like a red-shirt from Star Trek?"

He looked over his shoulder in response to an unheard sound. "I shall have to say farewell for now. Take care, Madeleine." And he left the wind blowing the curtains in his wake.

Seized by a sudden muse, Leinney took up a pencil and filled a blank page with feverish scribbling. When she was done, her pent-up frustration was spent. Abandoning the cartoon drawing on the coffee table, she stuffed her slim wallet in a back pocket and ran out the door to seek fresher air. Some food might be nice, too.

In her rush she slammed into Jim Brass, sending his carefully balanced grocery bags tumbling everywhere.

"Whoa, there," he said as he restrained his automatic police response to unexpected physical confrontation.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" she said, quickly bending to catch a rolling fruit. She began picking up and repacking his bags for him. He caught her by the shoulders and examined her face. At first she shied away, darting looks towards the bags, before finally consenting to look him in the eye. While her mouth was closed and relaxed in a typical poker face, her eyes spoke a different story to him.

"Why are you upset?" he asked tenderly.

"I—I—I just needed some fresh air. That's all. I'm OK. Really," she said, calming down.

He was reminded of the day he first met her, blithely talking about a dead body while her eyes revealed the turmoil inside. "All right," he said. "Let me put away these groceries and then I'll show you the park down the street. Great place for fresh air."

She nodded and sat down on the bench outside waiting for him. He entered the apartment and quickly emptied the bags into the refrigerator and cupboards. Out of habit, he performed a visual sweep of the living room, but a piece of paper on the coffee table caught his eye. Picking it up, he saw a semi-realistic cartoon drawing of _'Asbestos Man,'_ as it proclaimed across the bottom. It seemed to him that the drawing was good enough to identify the model, although he couldn't recall anyone who matched the description. There was a scary quality to the man — perhaps what had prompted Leinney to seek air.

He found her outside and waved the drawing at her casually, but without bringing it too close. "Did you draw this? It's quite good," he said, testing her reaction.

"Oh. That. Yeah." Her troubled eyes confirmed his suspicion. "I meant to throw it out. It's from a nightmare," she explained with a long sigh.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, folding it up and sticking it in his pocket.

"No. I'd rather forget. No sense dwelling on awful things. Where's this nice park?"

By the time they walked the few blocks to the park, all traces of her recent anxiety were obliterated from her sparkling eyes. After walking and talking of completely mundane and pleasant things, they rested together on the swings, like a comfortable suburban couple. Brass could give up his J&B doubles for such a life.

On impulse, he asked if she would like to go to dinner with him. Nestled in his comforting embrace, she agreed, but only if they could stop by a store where she could find a less casual outfit suitable for the occasion. At the inexpensive boutique he'd heard Catherine talking favorably about with Sara, he resigned himself to boredom. Instead, Leinney's first choice turned out to be a modest but pleasingly layered diaphanous ensemble that matched her slate blue eyes perfectly. He didn't have to say anything; one look at his face and she made an instant decision. The sales clerk helped her find flats and hose to match and they were out of the store within fifteen minutes.

He took her to dinner at a romantic restaurant he rarely frequented. Catherine had recommended it months ago as a place to take special ladies, knowing his old-fashioned tastes. The dinner theatre was old-school Las Vegas, near Fremont Street and the older casinos. After dinner, they danced to live orchestral music, faces buried shyly in each others necks during the slow songs.

The evening ended in bliss. The next morning, the coverlet on the guestbed remained untouched. As he gazed at the sleeping form beside him, Brass felt untouchably content for the first time in decades.


	9. Engulfed

"Hello, Madeleine," the voice slithered through the quiet stillness of the living room.

"Dr. Lecter," she nodded with polite stiffness from her perch on the couch.

"I trust you are well."

"Physically? Yes, thank you."

"Mentally, though..."

She shrugged. "It's quite disconcerting to find that your real life is fiction and fictional works are now fact."

"I should think it would be easy for a writer of fiction to adjust to the situation — you have complete freedom to write the story as you like."

"Hardly. Stories depend on the characters to act according to their nature. Otherwise they lose credibility, and with it, the readership. If no one reads it, there's no story."

"True, indeed."

"So what is it you want from me — why have you done this?"

"Simple, really. You shall write for me."

She laughed bitterly. "But I haven't written a single publishable work. I'm just a fan-fic hack with a mundane day job. Surely there are better writers..."

"Dearest Madeleine, don't sell yourself short. Many fan-fiction writers are better than they realize — you yourself admire some of them greatly. All they need to get published are their own characters and settings." He paused, contemplating. "In some ways, though, the really good ones are more talented than the original authors, because it takes more to get inside someone else's head, to get a good feel for another's imaginary worlds, than to pull things out of your own imagination. The field of psychology is similar. First you discover how your own mind works — quite a daunting task for most people — but it's infinitely more difficult to piece together the behavioral clues on how another person's mind operates. Few professionals actually achieve predictable results — the rest just muddle through. Anyway, it so happens I need a fan-fiction writer, and while there are more talented writers as you say, you were most convenient for my purposes."

A piece fell into place. "The Mountain comes to Mohammed. I'm flattered, Dr. Fell."

"Very good, Madeleine," he chuckled lightly.

"You're the mystery employee at BMF Inc with whom I've supposedly been working for the past few months."

"So, you recognize that little moniker of mine?"

She nodded. "You used it in Florence while playing museum curator just before Inspector Pazzi recognized you and you..." she trailed off in obvious disgust.

"He sold me," he explained mildly. "I merely gave him what Danté described as the just fate reserved for gluttony and treachery. But I did not take my pseudonym from the Old Norse _fjall_, or mountain. Rather, it was from the Latin _fello_ for fierce, terrible or cruel. Causing death. Similar to felling a tree. Or already fallen. Or was it just a skin, from the Latin _pellis_, to pull over my inner organs, to make me a likeable fellow?" He smiled ghoulishly over his own pun.

"What if I'm not interested in working with you?" she asked cautiously.

"Well!" he exclaimed as if he hadn't considered that she might refuse. He drew in a sighing breath, "Perhaps I'll be in the mood for _'Jim'_-balaya Brass...no? Perhaps an appetizer of 'Grahams' _au foie-_'Gris'?"

"You can't do that," she blanched.

"Why not? _It's in my nature to do so._" He winked one crimson-tinged eye.

"You can't kill canon characters — to do so would change the canon story! It's a basic fan-fic rule: the events must interact seamlessly with canon in order to maintain credibility. You could try it, and occasionally it might work if the side-plot really pulls it off, but then you dead-end the story, and more importantly, you risk turning off the fan readers who love these characters. And without the readers—"

"—the story dies. Well, I can always move on to the next writer. Leaving you here, along with the leftovers in the fridge, of course," rubied orbs grinned at her.

She blinked rapidly, digesting the idea before regurgitating, "OK, what is it you wish me to write? If it's not too objectionable, I guess it would be better than the alternative."

"That's my girl, Madeleine. I think you will find it most agreeable. It's simple, really. I'm getting on in years, and retirement with my love has been rather enticing. All that killing, as pleasurable as it was, is a younger man's game nonetheless. We just want to be left in peace the rest of our days, so I don't have to keep swatting at gnats. Surely you can do that?"

"It's agreeable," she had to admit — more than she would have hoped. "I'll see what I can do to help."

"Good."

"Dr. Lecter?"

"Mmm?" he answered her girlish plea with the magnanimous tone of a man who had everything he wanted.

"Why Jim?" Simple curiosity.

_Interesting,_ he thought. "Why not? You clearly like him for his _human_ qualities. And so many fans overlook him. Doesn't he deserve some happiness?" Malice lurked beneath the bland expression. "His name fit the story pretty well, too. Perhaps that's why..."

With a flutter of curtains, he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared.


	10. Freed

Leinney accompanied Brass to work that evening; he promised to give her a lift to the airport so that she could return home and take care of things. Sated from a much more casual dinner than the previous evening, she sat in the waiting room engrossed in a book (the latest best-selling detective novel, whisked off the shelf at the convenience store to keep her occupied), while he worked a few details before her flight time. Brass had advised her that the later flights were cheaper if you didn't mind red-eyes. She didn't mind at all.

That morning, enveloped in the dawn warmth, and remembering how perfectly compatible their lovemaking had been, he'd been emboldened to ask if she would consider moving. Her hopeful eyes told him that she reciprocated his impetuous feelings, although she soberly suggested that they take things slowly, so as not to rush into anything. But she could move anywhere with her job.

When she had bought the book at the convenience store, she commented nervously, "God, I could really use a cigarette."

"You smoke?" Brass was surprised.

"Not really. Sometimes when I'm writing, if I can find cigarettes."

Having seen his share of emphysema patients choked to death on their own lung fluids at home, Brass didn't much care for cancer sticks, but then again, with new hope of an actual relationship, he could overlook a small personality defect. Hell, his own defects would overshadow any she might have... "Let's get some, then," he suggested hospitably.

"Naw. They only have regular ones. I only smoke cloves. Keeps me from getting addicted, since I can't find them too often," she smirked.

Several details flew from his subconscious to conscious mind. "You remind me of someone," he said.

"Who?" She was busy finding the correct bills folded small in her slim wallet — more of a business card holder than anything — to pay much attention.

"Zoë Ellismere," he said, taking a chance while watching her reaction carefully. He was rewarded by a slight double-take. "You know her?"

"Never met her," came the confident reply.

"You sure? She's from Montana, also."

"No. I'm sure I haven't met her. I'd remember." To his quizzical eyebrows, she answered, "Zoë is one of my pet baby names, so of course I'd remember meeting someone by that name. What part of Montana is she from?"

"A place called Shangri-La. You ever heard of it?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact. It's some sort of hippie colony way in the mountains northwest of Bozeman. From what I recall, you can get lost pretty easily if you don't know exactly how to get there. Does she live here now? I'd like to meet her."

"Unfortunately, she's gone missing. Well, not exactly. She took off on a camping trip several days ago and her housemate doesn't know how to get in touch with her."

"You sure she didn't go home? Shangri-La is way out in the boonies. Not much civilization around, and cell phones probably don't work..."

"That's a thought."

Brass left her reading the book in the waiting room, while he returned to his office at the start of shift that night. He was impatient to finish the paperwork he'd stuffed in his jacket pocket for priority attention. Opening up an unfamiliar folded paper, he realized he'd completely forgotten the drawing hastily buried from the day before. Reluctantly, he left it on the side of his desk as he attended to more pressing matters.

Grissom interrupted him. "Jim, can you get a warrant to sear..." the abrupt silence made Brass look up from his work.

Grissom had seized the paper on the desk and was staring at it intently. "Where did you get this?" he asked. He seemed to have inhaled a piece of food or something, as his voice sounded hoarse. Brass hoped his friend wasn't coming down with a cold.

"Leinney drew it. She's quite good. I was wondering if our sketch artist might use her as a substitute when needed. She's thinking of moving to Vegas in the next few months and I thought she might want to pick up some extra work." Brass tried to sound impartial, but he winced as he realized how uncharacteristically chatty he was acting. Thankfully, Grissom took no notice.

Grissom coughed to clear his throat. "Yeah. She's good. Aren't you driving her to the airport today?"

"Yep, she's reading a book down in the waiting room while I finish up these reports. You need that warrant right away or can it wait?" Brass asked, hoping it could wait.

"Page Nick and Warrick as soon as you get it," he said, walking out without saying goodbye. Brass was used to the scientist's erratic social behavior. He picked up the phone to call a judge who was good at giving him warrants without much trouble. Then he hung up quickly before it connected and contacted Nick first, to get the details Grissom had failed to provide. In his haste to get the paperwork done as soon as possible, Brass didn't miss the drawing that Grissom had taken with him.


	11. Caged

Grissom snatched the book away from her, shoving the drawing under her nose instead. In a forceful whisper he asked, "_Is this your work?_" Her caged animal eyes told him what her lips struggled to deny with words that caught in her silenced throat.

"You know who he is, don't you? _Don't you?_" he accused as he recognized her fear. His own fear.

She nodded once, still unable to speak.

"_When did you see him?_" Grissom hissed. "_Where?_"

She stared at him helplessly. Wide-eyed. Petrified.

Sudden suspicion narrowed his eyes. "Did Crawford put you up to this?"

Her eyes betrayed confusion, but she found her voice. "Crawford? Jack Crawford? Of the FBI?"

"Yes, dammit!"

Curiosity calmed her fear. "Didn't he die of a heart attack a few years ago?"

"So you knew him?" No one had had the courtesy to inform him when Crawford died, but he buried that irritation under the immediacy of the current situation.

"I knew _of_ him. A little bit. Not much." She cocked her head, studying him. "You're Wil Graham, aren't you? Not Gil Grissom. Well, perhaps _now_ you are..."

"Nevermind about me! If he's here in Vegas..." Grissom broke off with a mix of fear and old anger. Long before Dr. Lecter could escape maximum security custody as he had anticipated, Wil Graham had switched careers and names and moved to crass Las Vegas as the least likely place to run across the _haut-coûture_ cannibal he'd put away. Too much pain and helplessness, too much of a personal cost to chase him again. To get _inside_ that dark mind to figure out how to catch him. To risk being _trapped_ inside that mind and _becoming_ such a monster. No crimes in Las Vegas ever came close to that terrible darkness, and so he had felt safe and happy enough for years. Now he had the possibility of being a father again, having a family again, he was terrified that it might all be taken from him. He wasn't sure he could survive such a thing at his age.

Grissom's face purpled. "Where is he?"


	12. Confronted

Brass walked with an unaccustomed bounce in his step. Although he was driving her to the airport, he knew he would see her very soon again. His jaw dropped, seeing what was going on between Leinney and Grissom. He broke into a run. Pushing the scientist away from her, Brass spun him around to grab him by the lapels.

"What do you think you're doing, Gil?" he shouted. To his surprise, his mild-mannered colleague stared back vehemently. Brass let him go, but stood between him and the woman who had saved his life.

Grissom waved the sketch in front of him. "Do you _know_ who he is?"

"Don't tell him," Leinney pleaded.

"Why not? It's our _job_ to bring him in. Do you _know_ how much danger you're in harboring him? And not even from the court system..." Grissom's face was full of horror as he thought of the things Lecter was capable of perpetrating.

"Did _you_ know what happened to Inspector Pazzi when he tried to apprehend _him_? Do you want that — or worse — to happen to Jim? Leave it alone, Wil! Leave _him_ alone!"

"Who?" Brass asked, but was ignored. It barely registered that Leinney had confused Grissom's first name with a similar sounding name. His subconscious chalked it up to understandable heat of the moment forgetfulness.

"If he's here in Vegas, we have to get him. No one will be safe until we do." Grissom was adamant, but with ebbing force.

"Not your job. Let the FBI do it. You yourself stopped looking for _him_ years ago. Let whoever took over after Crawford do it." She hoped that the FBI had relegated the case to the cold files, but knew that suggesting such a thing to Wil Graham would hardly help her argument.

Grissom sat down in defeat. He knew he couldn't go through with it himself; he couldn't take that awful personal risk again. "Call the FBI, Jim."

"No," she said. "I never said anything about seeing _him_ here. I won't be able to help them. Besides, if _he_ were here in Vegas — which I doubt 'cause it's far too vulgar for _him_ — I bet _he'd_ be gone before the FBI started looking for him."

"Who?" Brass was ignored again.

"But you _did_ see him," Grissom insisted.

"Got any evidence to back that up?" She didn't deny it. Her eyes didn't deny it. But she looked at him with steady resolution. She wasn't going to budge.

He waved the sketch at her.

"From a nightmare," she shrugged. "I must have seen a picture in a newspaper and remembered it in my dreams."

"Who _is_ this _Asbestos Man_?" Brass finally caught Leinney's attention.

She sighed. "When I was in college, some of the dorm residents discovered we had asbestos ceilings. They started jumping up and poking at it with pencils in protest. They figured that by vandalizing it, they'd force the university into replacing the dangerous material." She shook her head, rolling her eyes at their blind stupidity. "If left alone, asbestos can save you from lethal fire, without harming you at all. But if disturbed and airborne, it can kill you slowly and painfully."

"In other words, don't disturb _him._" Brass couldn't keep the patronizing tone completely out of the statement.

She sighed. "Tell me something, Jim. If it came down to a choice between catching _him_ or preventing _him_ from murdering people, which would you choose?"

With a niggling sense of _deja-vu_, Brass replied, "Preventing murder — but catching him and locking him away would do that." It was the same answer he had given to Zoë Ellismere when she had asked him a similar question. The two women were so much alike...

Grissom answered, "Many law enforcement personnel — our friends and colleagues — would die in the attempt. She's right. The FBI should take care of this one."

"No. I think the FBI should leave _Asbestos Man_ alone. If you don't chase _him_, _he_ won't have a reason to kill. Clarice..." she bit her lip, realizing she might have given too much information to Brass.

"Clarice Starling?" Grissom asked. "She was his last victim. They never found her body."

"Clarice Starling..." Brass muttered. "Wasn't she that FBI agent who disappeared a few years ago? Early career fame for catching the guy that kidnapped a senator's daughter by using a convicted serial killer's theories...what was his name? Cannibal something..."

"Hannibal the Cannibal," Grissom breathed, realizing from his long friendship that the detective had figured it out. "Hannibal Lecter. Yes. Afterwards he escaped. His obsession with Agent Starling ended with his kidnapping her along with another FBI agent. They found this other agent with the top of his skull surgically removed and his frontal lobe carved and fried up in a wine sauce. The remains of the meal were found inside his cranium, the skull cap placed neatly back on top. They never found Agent Starling."

Gritting her teeth, Leinney corrected him. "_Buerre noisette,_ with capers and black truffles. To make Paul _'The Misogynist_' Krendler more palatable for Clarice." She breathed deeply as if to cleanse her lungs of some sickening stench. "Clarice is alive and well. He fell in love with her and took her with him. Eventually, he stopped drugging her and she stayed to keep him from wrecking mayhem. Loving fascination for her keeps him occupied. Not your typical lawful solution, but it seems to work. At least the FBI hasn't seen any evidence of him lurking anywhere." She smiled grimly.

"How do you know all this?" Brass asked. It was a side of her he wasn't sure he wanted to know about, but his professional curiosity trumped his personal feelings.

"I read a lot." she replied enigmatically.

Brass stared at her, momentarily unable to form a question he could hope she would answer directly. "And what's your connection, Gil?" he turned to Grissom.

Grissom's gaze never left Leinney as he answered, "I profiled him once. For the FBI."

Brass noticed Grissom didn't wish to elaborate further. He remembered from the few times a serial killer had come under the purview of their department, that Gil was skilled in profiling. He now surmised that the bad blood between his friend and the FBI must stem from some past profiling job. Perhaps the FBI hadn't acted quickly enough in a case that still bugged the entomologist. Unwittingly, Brass smiled a little at the pun.

"There's nothing amusing about him," Grissom grumbled quite irritably.

Taking the cue, Brass quickly turned his expression down to frown, shaking his head.

"Well," Leinney said too brightly, "at least you can close one case."

"What do you mean?"

"Now that we all understand who left me in the desert and why, and that I certainly won't be pressing any charges against _him,_ then you don't need to work on it anymore."

"Lecter." Grissom stated grimly.

"Yep."

"_I'll_ press charges." Brass declared.

Sharp intake of breath, Leinney exhaled slowly before asking, "How? Where's the evidence? Do you have any at all?"

"No," replied Grissom glumly. "And I know he's too smart to leave anything he doesn't want us to see. But you said you know why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" She paused, looking at their confusion. "It's a test. But you don't need to take the bait. It's not worth it."

Greg Sanders popped his head through the door, motioning excitedly for Grissom to come talk with him. As Grissom reluctantly walked toward the door, Greg stole a glance at Leinney as if rubbernecking at an accident scene.

Brass's romantic feelings kept interfering with his thoughts of what he could say to convince Leinney to help the FBI catch "the Cannibal." From what he'd encountered in the professional grapevine, he knew the man was exceedingly dangerous — no local law enforcement should attempt to apprehend him but rather call the FBI immediately. However, without her cooperation, they had no information to go on. Even the mysterious Dr. Fell at BMF had turned into a dead end; all the information on the employment documents had been falsified. "Look," he began, "you wouldn't have to be involved. I wouldn't have to be involved, but we should at least let the FBI..."

"Jim?" Grissom interrupted with a strained voice. "Greg has something to show you."

"Excuse me," he said to Leinney and joined Grissom outside. "What is it?" he worried.

After a few minutes of explanation, Grissom offered, "Do you want me to ask her?"

"No," Brass replied. "Let me. We'll use one of the interview rooms."

With a cryptic "It turns out we have some evidence," he brought her to the designated room and had her sit down, while Greg went to fetch their coffee orders: black for Brass and himself and milk-no-sugar for her.

"So, how do you know so much about Dr. Lecter?" he asked conversationally while they waited for their drinks.

"I read a lot," she shrugged.

Brass noticed the repetition of her earlier, pat answer. "So why read about him, particularly."

"I don't understand." she replied flatly.

"C'mon, you're avoiding the question." With a typical suspect at this point, Brass would display anger to cut through the bullshit, but his current response was more gentle and coaxing. He just couldn't see her as anything but an innocent reluctant witness, despite the evidence that might lead in other directions.

"No, no. I don't understand _him_ — people like him. I want to understand."

"Why?"

She paused as varied emotions warred on her face and in her eyes. It seemed to him she relived a puzzled horror of some past event, unable to bring it to words. "I'm a writer. I try to make sense of things," she offered lamely. "But, I'm not very good at it..."

"Is it because you're related to him?" he asked softly, knowing he was treading on eggshell emotions now.

"What?" Startled eyes bored into his. "I'm not..." she drifted off into alarmed speculation..._am I?_

"Greg ran routine tests on your DNA when we were looking at that snakebite victim from the desert. You have a rare genetic signature — so rare that the few people who have it are mentioned by name in the scientific journals."

Greg returned with the coffee and passed the cups around. Leinney sipped hers thoughtfully as Brass motioned Greg to start his explanation.

Greg's normal expression of frank curiosity was barely restrained by transparent nervousness. "I thought my samples were contaminated, and ran them again." He cleared his throat, taking a swig of coffee for courage. _This lady's relatives are infamous!_ "Then Brass got some fresh samples to run after I cleaned and tested the lab equipment. A left-handed amino acid in your DNA. Technically, sinister — left-handed — molecules shouldn't work — that's why left-handed sweeteners don't come with calories. So I did a little research. Only a few documented cases of this Sinister DNA — in criminal archives, since that's where most of the _commercial_ applications for DNA research are. Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the international crime lord, was one of them. And it passed through the X-chromosome to his daughter, Nena Blofeld. Brass says you had an Aunt Nena?" Brass gave him a warning look too late.

"Whoa. You mean to say they _weren't half-_sisters?"

"Who?"

"Nena and Lopé, my mother. From what the letters said, Blofeld supported Nena's upbringing, sending her to private schools and stuff, but not my mother. Nena said herself that their shared parent was not the one that counted. So much for her Nature over Nurture argument — Lopé was the antithesis of Nena, yet your evidence says they both had Blofeld's sinister X-chromosome."

Brass continued, "And there was another left-handed individual in the database."

"Um, left-handed amino acid," Greg corrected the older man timidly.

Brass merely nodded agreement and finished, "Dr. Hannibal Lecter."

"_That's_ interesting," she frowned, trying to puzzle out the connection. "How...?"

"Could that be?" Greg filled in the rest of her question. "Not a primary family relationship — not enough markers in common. But the sinister amino acid is there, and statistically speaking, they're probably cousins of some sort, on the maternal side of course. Unfortunately, the journals say nothing is known about the Blofeld family history before Ernst shows up, nor do we know where Lecter comes from, if that is his real name."

"Dr. Lecter was an orphan. Saw his family tortured and killed when he was far too impressionable. Both of them were orphans from Eastern Europe, but in different generations..." Her brows furrowed.

"So if you did not know about your family relationship with Lecter, how come you read so much about him?" Brass persisted.

The previous emotional battles resumed on her face before she sighed and answered, "Because of Nena. Dr. Lecter's personality is similar. I wanted to understand Nena and people like her. Futile, perhaps, but I can't let it go. Why do some people choose to be Skinwalkers?"

"Skinwalkers?"

She glanced at Brass vaguely before realizing he wasn't following her thoughts. "Sorry, I thought Lieutenant Leaphorn had mentioned the term at dinner. The Dinee — the Navajos — use the term to refer to people who deliberately choose not to walk in beauty. Traditional Dinee culture sees criminal behavior as a sickness that can be cured if the person wishes to walk in beauty, but Skinwalkers cannot be cured."

"So why the obsession with these Skinwalkers?"

Her jaw worked slowly as she struggled with the answer. "The only thing I knew of Lopé before I saw the newspaper clippings and letters between her and Nena was of a broken person consumed by sorrow. It was the reason for conspiring with nanny to save up and send them on that train trip — hoping to lift her spirits with a vacation. Later, the letters and clippings she kept tied in neat bundles in the desk revealed her as a young idealist transformed gradually by disappointment in little sister Nena's choices. Lopé sort of raised Nena while their mother was working; I think in some ways she was afraid of raising another child..."

"So, at fifteen years old, after your parents died in the train crash, you're saying you just hopped on your bike and rode from Montana to Texas just to meet the woman who turned your mother into a basket-case?" Brass checked his tone too late. He hadn't meant to turn this into a criminal interrogation.

"Cut a fifteen year old some slack, willya? It's all about identity at that age — where you come from, where you're going. Not about whether it's smart to take off on a bicycle alone with no camping supplies and barely enough money for food. Aunt Nena was the only other family and curiosity won out... Funny, I didn't even remember Leaphorn connected with that at all, but it was so long ago..."

"All right, I'm sorry. Back to Lecter, then. So, let me get this straight: you didn't know he was related to Blofeld, your maternal grandfather, nor did you realize Blofeld was biologically related to you, but yet you've read a great deal about Lecter, and he in turn is responsible for your disappearance from Bozeman, Montana some months ago and your reappearance in the Mohave foothills just a few days ago..."

Leinney stiffened, staring at the one-way mirror as if noticing it for the first time. Brass saw clearly that she was wondering who was behind the mirror watching their conversation.

"Is there any evidence to say he was responsible for any such thing?" she quipped.

"Just what you said to Dr. Grissom."

She fell silent, staring at the mirror. A moment later, Grissom entered the room and sat down.

"There's no one on the other side of that mirror now. But we have to get to the bottom of this."

Leinney stared at Brass, unblinking. He could feel the heat of accusation from one betrayed. But her eyes then spoke of deep sadness.

"_'Guns don't kill people,_" she quoted softly. "_'Bullets do.'_ But the Law very sensibly holds the person who pointed the gun and pulled the trigger responsible for the trajectory and ultimate destination of that bullet. And if I sent you down a hallway at the end of which I knew was a firing range, would I or the person firing the gun be held responsible for your getting shot?"

Brass pursed his lips, seeing immediately where this line of thought was heading, but not bothering to stop her. Instead, he considered any rebuttal that might convince her to cooperate. He could think of none at the moment.

"Telling you information that I know will result in you pelting down that hallway to your death, and that's murder in my book. Even if I hated you, I wouldn't do that. I'm sorry, but I cannot say any more."

"You don't know it would result in anyone's death..." Grissom tried lamely.

She now leveled her gaze on Grissom. "I do." Her terse statement reverberated quietly around the room.

"He specifically threatened, didn't he." Grissom guessed, transfixed.

She nodded mutely, holding her end of the unwavering stare with the scientist.

"Who?" he demanded softly.

Eyes glazed as she struggled for dispassion, "_Jim_balaya preceded by _foie-de_-Gris on _Graham_ crackers. Followed by a martini, shaken but not stirred. And a pickled onion instead of an olive." Their staring contest flickered with a profound understanding. _A martini with pickled onion was called a Gibson. Or Gilbert's-son. Or the child that no one but Grissom and Zoë knew was a marble-sized entity growing inside her. No one even suspected that he and Zoë had ever had sex._ At the same moment, Grissom realized why Lecter had chosen this particular woman as his messenger. She had Zoë's eyes.

Caught in horrified fascination, Greg Sanders ogled Grissom, who blanched. At no time had Greg witnessed Grissom so distraught, no matter how grisly a scene was; Gruesome Grissom _never_ blanched. _Wow!_

"You need to erase that tape." she said quietly.

Grissom did not argue. He had been taping the interview, hoping to show it to the FBI and goad them into chasing down the mad genius for him. At first, he had held off joining the interview, not trusting himself not to blow it again. But now he realized that she was right. No good could come of their interference. He nodded to Brass, finally breaking eye-contact with the woman.

"She's right."

"What? We need to get this asshole!"

"No." Grissom was calm. Deadly calm. "We can't even hope to do so."

"You've gotta be joking, Gil. We've got to put him behind bars. You heard what she said — he's dangerous!"

"Yeah, and if he's made specific threats, he'll follow through if we try to catch him. He's many steps ahead of us Jim. He's beyond genius. Let the FBI keep chasing him. We're no match here."

"Listen to yourself, Gil. You! Giving up? You have made this the second best lab in the country. Of course we can get him. What's got into you?"

"_He_ did," Grissom's soft voice cut through with the force of truth. "Many years ago. I know _him,_ Jim. Like you'll never _have_ to know, thank goodness. I profiled _him._ And _he_ profiled me. We don't have the resources for this one. I moved to Vegas to get away from _him._ I sacrificed everything that meant anything to me to do so." Grissom's memory twinged with Molly, whom he'd had to leave behind. And Molly's son, Willy, who would be about Greg's age now. He now turned to Greg, sad wisdom lending strength to his words, "forget what you heard here. You'll live longer and happier if you do so."

Greg nodded obediently. Somehow, he _knew_ his godlike mentor was right.

Before they parted, the woman with Zoë's eyes gazed at Grissom thoughtfully. "Y'know, you'd look good with a beard."


	13. Desserted sic

Leinney stayed away from Vegas as weeks eked past into months, occasionally emailing Jim with an excuse about a mountain of work that was consuming her every waking moment. There was a deadline to meet, she said.

Memory of that sunny morning after their first dinner and dancing date haunted him with its beauty. Its poetry.  
>Memory of how her lips tasted.<br>Of the scent of her sweat.  
>Of the feel of her silky velvet skin and tickly hair cascading over his chest.<br>Of the breakfast in bed they had both gotten up to make.  
>Of her cutting onions for their omelets, eyes turning bright aquamarine behind the happy tears.<br>Of the way those same eyes became a gentle seagreen in his bedroom.  
>And of the walks in the park, resting on the swings in middle-aged comfort.<p>

He never wanted to return to that non-existence where his only personal companion was a J&B double. Once Pandora's box of possibilities opened up, he could hardly shut the lid again on his psyche.

Brass thought daily about flying up to Bozeman to visit her. Every other week, his fingers found flight schedules listed on the Internet. But each time, as if by psychic magic, he received another email from Leinney. Her descriptions of being so relentlessly busy always discouraged him. He figured he'd just get in the way of her work and then she'd tell him to bug off. Forever. Unthinkable.

He was getting too old for these relationship games; what was the right thing to do? Go with his heart or give her space? Of course, he always replied to her emails immediately, but kicking himself afterwards for the clumsy words sounding too much like an official police memo. Finally, he called Mr. Bateman of BMF's Human Resources.

"She's been on medical leave," the vice president informed him. "I just kept her marked as working for Dr. Fell — as she requested. It seemed sensible at the time. No one here at the company needs to know her private medical issues, and the assignment gave a good excuse for her not being available. She's not missing again, is she?" Mr. Bateman sounded worried.

"No, no. Nothing like that," Brass reassured hastily. "Just a routine question. Sorry to disturb you."

He confronted her immediately by phone. "I just talked to Bateman at BMF. You're not working on any big project for them."

A dread pause on the other end.

"Look, I just don't understand. I thought we had something together..." He couldn't mask his disappointment with gruffness.

"We do." Present tense, but tense presence.

Although he brightened with hope, his usual cynicism replied. "Don't bullshit me. Tell me the truth. It's not like haven't been around the block before. I'm too old for you." He gave her an easy way out. Better to have a clean break than this wishy-washy nowhere relationship.

"What? No, not at all. Age is completely irrelevant. And you're not _that_ old. Are you? I just..." she couldn't say it, but she was afraid Lecter might return, especially here where she lived, since she hadn't completed the commissioned project to her satisfaction. And if Brass were to catch wind of it, he might fall victim to the _Cannibal_while trying to protect her. She knew it was just fear, but nevertheless, she did not want to risk it.

"Look," he cut through the pause to steer the conversation into a more active direction, "I've got an invitation to a party next week at Zoë Ellismere's house. It says I should bring a guest. There's no one in the world I'd rather bring, and you _did_say you wished to meet her. Will you come?" He figured one way or another she would have to make a decision.

"OK," she breathed, although suspecting something out of her control would step in fatefully to prevent her from fulfilling this small promise.

Nevertheless, gritting her teeth with resolve the next day, she placed the helmet on her head, and headed off towards I-15 South. She had only packed a week's worth of clothing in the saddlebags, not really believing she would stay in Vegas even that long. She was desperate to find a way out of this situation. Desperate to see Jim again, to walk in beauty with him, if only for another moment in this awful, cruel world. Desperate to protect him from unspeakable dangers, even if that meant she had to end their relationship. Somehow. _You can't kill a canon character._She couldn't let Lecter kill Jim.

Just twenty miles north of the city outskirts, a trucker drifted out of his lane as the long haul south from Idaho finally caught up to him. The bump-thump of the two-wheeler passing under his eighteen wheels woke him up.

Other than the Montana license plate, which had ripped away early in the crash, the only recognizable fragment in the mangled mess poked out from under the corner of something saddle-baggish: a CD safely ensconced in its jewel-case, itself miraculously unscathed. _The Garden,_by Merril Bainbridge. Slightly resembling Ellie Brass, the blond Australian singer gazed placidly out of the plastic window, surrounded by a butterfly garden, blissfully unaware of the carnage outside her fecund frame.

Brass was on duty when he received the call at 3:13 AM. Strictly routine vehicular manslaughter — the distraught driver had confessed immediately and Brass nodded to the arresting officer to drive the trucker back to the station for booking and processing. Then he conducted his own visual inspection of the scene. The quick confession probably saved the trucker's life, although he had not suffered a scratch in the accident.

At the scene, the veteran detective did something he had never done before, but would not remember doing later... Later — as lyrics from each song shattered the windshield of his soul. He stole evidence.

* * *

><p>On the upper floor of an elegant Argentinean mansion, nestled in the bosom of milky nectar, a pair of rubies glinted in satiation.<p> 


End file.
